


my heart is human (my blood is boiling)

by village_skeptic



Series: tumblr fragments [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Gen, burger-making robots, labor politics, the gig economy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-27 12:07:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15024278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/village_skeptic/pseuds/village_skeptic
Summary: “So. How’s that editorial on the “burger bot” coming, Juggie?”“5000 words and counting,” he said, without lifting his eyes from the screen.--In which Betty is both an excellent editor and an excellent girlfriend.





	my heart is human (my blood is boiling)

**Author's Note:**

> The genesis of this drabble was a _Wall Street Journal_ video on a restaurant using robots to make burgers. [The video can be found here](https://www.wsj.com/video/this-burger-bot-makes-your-lunch-with-no-human-help/59F0787F-D9FF-4787-A51B-5CCD5F91D7F5.html) \- the context is certainly helpful for this piece, but not essential.

Betty had copy-edited Veronica’s article on Fashion Week. She had brainstormed a full two pages of questions for her interview tomorrow with the captain of the chess team. And she had spent the past twenty minutes tweaking the layout for the feature on the water polo team so thoroughly that _her own_ brain felt a little waterlogged.

It was time. She couldn’t avoid it any more.

“So. How’s that editorial on the “burger bot” coming, Juggie?”

“5000 words and counting,” he said, without lifting his eyes from the screen.

There was a brief but tactful silence, filled only by the noise of emphatic keystrokes from Jughead’s side of the _Blue and Gold_ office.

Clearly, this would require diplomacy.

 

 

“Jughead, I know it’s a topic close to your heart, but we only have so much column space - ”

The keystrokes stilled.

“’Close to my heart’ doesn’t even begin to cover it, Betts! Not when it’s our whole society that’s _close to the brink_. What better way to attempt to convey the underlying corrosiveness of the West Coast tech bro mindset to our fellow classmates?”

By this point, he’d abandoned the laptop and was pacing back and forth in the narrow space between their desks.

“Forget about things like ‘community responsibility’ and ‘the dignity of labor.’ Everything is about streamlined efficiency and profit margin. They see nothing wrong with a ‘gig economy’ that leaves average workers scrambling to make ends meet. 

Oh, sure, it’s _flexible_ -” and here he sneered - “flexible enough for you to fit your job as an Uber driver around three _other_ freelance jobs that don’t pay health insurance either!”

He wheeled around and pointed at her. “Do you have _any idea_ what a two-bedroom apartment in San Francisco rents for these days?” 

Dimly, Betty realized that her hands were on her hips. “Well, no, because I don’t _live_ in San Francisco, I live in Riverdale!”

“EXACTLY. _We_ live in Riverdale. And if there’s one thing that might shake the complacency of this town and get it to fight back against the inexorable encroachment of our technological overlords - it’s the image of our beloved Pop Tate, replaced by a robot. A mindless, soulless, _heartless_ –”

 

 

Just because you love someone doesn’t mean that you don’t occasionally tune them out. And for a minute or two, that’s what Betty did. 

Rather than listening to the words themselves, she focused on their cadence and pitch; the occasional thickness in his voice. The tension in his shoulders. The viciousness with which he splayed his fingers in the air to make a point - a viciousness that didn’t quite hide the trembling of his hands.

Honestly, the last time she’d seen Jughead this wound up over something unrelated to his dad or the Serpents, it was probably back when the Twilight closed, and -

_Oh._

An image popped into her head unbidden: a lanky boy in a corner booth in the wee hours of the morning, scowling intently at his laptop; then looking up to notice that a generous slice of pie had mysteriously joined the single bottomless cup of coffee that he’d been nursing for the last six hours. 

 

 

Betty reached out and caught his hand as he paced by her desk. 

“No room in an automated, profit-driven system for something like Pop’s ‘frequent customer discount,’ is there?” she said quietly.

Jughead’s flow of words cut off abruptly. He looked down at her and swallowed hard before speaking. “No. Probably not.”

She reached up with her other hand, cupping his cheek, meeting his gaze.

“Okay, then. We’ll turn the piece into a multi-part feature article. The _Blue and Gold_ ’s first longread.”

It was an odd and lovely thing, to be able to _feel_ his smile against her palm at the same time she saw it. 

 

 

“So that means I can expand the section on the history of automation and the labor movement…and I’m sure that one of the people out there trying to unionize Uber drivers would be willing to talk to us. God knows they’re desperate for publicity -”

The pacing had started up again, but with a completely different energy this time. 

She tossed him his jacket and grabbed her own pink wool coat. 

“Come on, Jughead. You can pitch this article to your editor properly - down at Pop’s, over a nice, juicy burger. No robots allowed.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title for this fic comes from [the Styx classic, "Mr. Roboto."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JocyQm5CZ3s)
> 
> Feel free to come say hi on tumblr, where I am village-skeptic!


End file.
